"Most rock journalism is people who can't write, interviewing people who can't talk, for people who can't read."– Frank Zappa in the Chicago Tribune, 1978

The quotation is especially applicable to people who have the balls to call themselves "critics" — self-prepossessed sociopaths who apparently are actually proud of the fact that they spend their time criticizing people who do things they could never do themselves. Evidently they are unaware that any humanoid with any shred of common decency regards them as insufferable twits who bring the ignoble pastime of puerile parasitism to new lows.

explores the extent to which journalistic coverage, through the examination of zappa’s dying and death

examines the social functions of journalism’s coverage of zappa’s death through news and obituaries

considering the utilisation of news values and ideologies that create our collective memory of zappa’s legacy

fz wrote:

most rock journalism is people who can’t write...

... through an analysis of the news articles of zappa’s last years living with prostate cancer and his obituaries, the chapter will seek to demonstrate how a life is renegotiated in the re-presentation of a particular type of death and how that in turn, is a reflection of society

Well, based on the summary of the last chapter, I admit that I'm not especially motivated to read it. The description sounds way too impressed with its own sense of self-importance.

Statements like "...the utilisation of news values and ideologies that create our collective memory of zappa’s legacy" raise a red flag for me. It sounds like a statement designed to let the author use words that make him sound "smart"...at the expense of actually making sense and communicating.

I distrust such jargonistic gobbledy- gook. If the author actually has something meaningful to say, and if his purpose is to communicate rather than impress others with his pseudo-erudition, he'd be better off saying it in plain English...at least, if he wants me to read it.

Slime, are you kidding? I just read the latest introduction to the next chapter....it's like a high school student trying to impress a college board or something. "Whilst we take the exemplar of the analyses"...blech.

_________________One of the sanest, surest, and most generous joys of life comes from being happy over the good fortune of others.

Slime, are you kidding? I just read the latest introduction to the next chapter....it's like a high school student trying to impress a college board or something. "Whilst we take the exemplar of the analyses"...blech.

don't judge a book by the quantity of distracting footnotes per page ... don't judge the footnotes by the percentage of ibids

z&t&, ch1 p13 wrote:

... and the immanent (the material reality of the music).121 Thiscontinuum between the means of construction and its subsequent reception ‘donot necessarily correspond’122 according to Nattiez, and in the case of Zappa, itis apparent that many casual listeners would not notice the numerous clues heembeds into his music. Additionally, as noted by Nattiez, ‘the listener will projectconfigurations upon the work that do not always coincide with the poietic process’,continuing, the listener ‘may have other ideas about what constitutes the work’sthemes’.123 This comment has resonance to the work of not only Umberto Ecoas outlined above, but also Michel Foucault124 and Roland Barthes125 ..._______________________________________121. Nattiez, Music and Discourse: Toward a Semiology of Music122. Ibid., p. 17123. Ibid124. Michel Foucault, ‘What Is An Author?’, in James Faubion (ed.), Essential Works of Foucault, 1954–1984 (New York, 1999),pp. 205–222125. Barthes, Image Music Text.126. Ibid p. 228127. John Blacking, How Musical Is Man (Seattle and London, 1974), p. 26128. ...

I have the book "Doctor Who - The Unfolding Text". It does for Doctor Who, what the above book does for Zappa's music..I closed my eyes, opened the book at a random page, and here is the scan. (The whole book is like this!)

_________________You're probably wondering why I'm here(not that it makes a heck of a lot of a difference to ya)

The inner trappings of your post preclude any machinations toward a settlement of arcane jargon while not wholly grasping the journalistic tripe that is foreboding with any whoop there it it judging it for it's basic meaning.

For instance, let's take the song "I'm So Cute." Within the shouting schadenfreude of Terry Bozzio's guttural cadence, there is trapped a certain purveyance of egoism that FV Zappa later gave thought to in his systemic and monotheistic tone poem "I'm A Beautiful Guy", suggesting an antidisestablishmentarianismic disassociation that Jung only hinted at in his thesis "Me-me-me: Mental Acrobatics for Self Aggrandizement."

But none of that really matters, the thrust of said analysis of the background of the sonic landscape is to venture forth that I'm some kind of really smart guy, who can use big words and give meaning to stuff that the modern day composer might say to me after perusing said thesis, "Wake up and smell your own shit."

_________________One of the sanest, surest, and most generous joys of life comes from being happy over the good fortune of others.

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